Ebay Business

Have you ever take a close look at ebay business to see if you can start your small business selling on ebay?. This page on ebay business is our small business guide for those of you who want to start ebay as a business.

Founded in 1995, ebay is an online auction and shoping website where marketing take place. At ebay individuals and business buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. It possition itself as a business that connect buyers and sellers globally.

Ebay is a multi-billion dollar business with operations in over thirty countries.

Lot of people has made up to six figure earning from ebay. Do you want to start a small business based on ebay? let us see some case study.

Case Studies on Ebay

A. Bargain

A. bagain runs a photographic shop in letchworrt and has more than 4000 feedback. Before they started selling at ebay they used to throw old stock into a box at the front of their shop and sell everything in it for less than nothing. When they join the ebay market as against £10 they normally get for their left over items they started getting £200. For one month alone they were able to generate £50,000 from over 350 photographic items ranging from mini tripods to digital SLRs. Ebay alone has account for up to 70% of their sale. They put their success to the large market they can reach through ebay.co.uk.

Rochford Tyres

Rochford tyres have been in business since 1987 selling car wheels and alloys. To them they where of the impression that sellin on the internet would not work because traditionally buyers lie to check out wheels and alloys product up close. Back in April 2003 they were sitting on around £60,000 worth of stock.
They were bang on the edge of their overdraft facility.

Here is what they said " Turning to eBay saved us as it meant - thanks to a sudden burst of new sales - we could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and keep the wolf away from our door It was really encouraging to see our name and brand up in lights and buoyed by this early success we settled on giving eBay a serious go. For me, a self-confessed technophobe, this was a huge and highly unusual step but I simply couldn't argue with the numbers and sales we were seeing. Upping the stakes is easier if you have the ability to buy cheaply and so that's where the wholesale leads that we'd worked hard to build over the years became so valuable. In no time at all we have doubled and then tripled staff levels; it has been a brilliant and exciting journey".

Like Rochford Tyres and A.bargain you can start a small business or increase your business sale using ebay. Why? because ebay gives you a global reach and and ready made business model.

Guides on starting an ebay business

If you want to start an ebay business the following guide will be of help to you. Take your time to read through them and seek futher advice if neccessary.

1> Your Niche

When you create a niche for yourself you make marketing more easy. You will be able to focus on products that cater to a few people. Niche creation is very important in marketing because it makes you master of a target part of a whole. Insteard of selling photographic materials, digital camara, bycicle and car part in your ebay shop you can focus on selling only one of them.

To create a niche for yourself you can come up with your own ideas. These can be based on your interest. Ask yourself 'What do you have passion for? what do you like or enjoy doing?' write down the ideas that come to you and see if anyone of them has solid potential for your business.

2> Open a Business Bank Account

If you want to sell on ebay as a business it will be better if you open a business bank account for that purpose. You want to ensure you run you business finance completely seperate from your personal bank account. There are some bank that will open a free business bank account for you where you will not have to pay fees for the account for up to two years.

3> Tax Advice

Dont forget to ask for advice on tax. Visit your local tax office make an appountment with them, ask as many question as possible about your propose business and the tax benefit your business can take advantage of. What can you claim? You can get cheap tax advice online but better still you can meet an account for professional tax advice. An account can give your business advice, that can cut down your tax payment. These advice will be relevant for your ebay business.

4> Value Added Tax

VAT is a tax that's charged on most business transactions in the UK. Businesses add VAT to the price they charge when they provide goods and services to customers. If you're a VAT-registered business, in most cases you:

* charge VAT on the goods and services you provide

* reclaim the VAT you pay when you buy goods and services for your business

If you're not VAT-registered then you can't reclaim the VAT you pay when you purchase goods and services

There is no way your business can get away from VAT. Seek professional advice on VAT. This will give you advantage in running a successful ebay business.

5> Signing Up Ebay

Start out by by going to http://www.eBay.com. You will need the following information to get started.

• Your full name -This one should be easy enough, I hope.

• Your mailing address - use the address where your customers will send payments and where you will ship items from.

• Your phone numbers - if an eBay member needs to get in touch with you and can't, he or she can request your phone number from eBay

• Your e-mail address - I highly recommend that you create a new e-mail address ONLY FOR EBAY USE. The automation techniques that I will be teaching in the future chapters will require an email account specifically for your EBay business.

• Your eBay user ID - If you plan to specialize in a particular niche, use your eBay ID to advertise this. For example, if your name is Tom and you're selling ebooks, try tomslibrary. If you have yet to pick a niche, wait until you read the chapters on picking your products to signup for your account. Picking your user ID can be a very important thing, especially until you get a lot of feedback or become a powerseller. If you have a website, you can make your ID your site’s name. For example, if I was just starting to sell on EBay, I would make mine profitware.com. Of course, EBay has changed it’s policy, again. I would have to make it **profit-ware.com** or maybe profit-waredotcom because EBay no longer allows domain names as user names.

• Your Password – It is a good thing to pick a password that means nothing to you. By that I mean to pick one that has nothing to do with your address, your birthdate, or anything else that a hacker could figure out. In fact, it’s good to change it every now and then just in case.

• Secret Question – Now you get to pick the question that you will answer in order to receive your password if you have forgotten it.

After you fill everything out and submit it, EBay will send you an email that you must confirm before your account becomes active.

To register your business and start trading under your business name on eBay, you’ll need to provide the following:

Ebay will ask for the postal address or telephone number so that they can contact you to confirm your registration.

They ask for your bank account details so that the fees you incur when you sell items can be collected by Direct Debit.

VAT registration: If you’re registered for VAT, giving them your VAT registration number when you register your business on eBay means you won’t have to pay VAT on seller fees.

6> Start Trading

Once your ebay business account is approved by ebay you can start trading. Read our article on 'Writing Ads For Ebay Sale' for guide on writing your adds for ebay sales. For more guide on ebay business read the articles on ebay business tips.

Have A Great Story or Question About Ebay Business?

Your story will appear on a Web page exactly the way you enter it here. You can wrap a word in square brackets to make it appear bold. For example [my story] would show as my story on the Web page containing your story.

TIP: Since most people scan Web pages, include your best thoughts in your first paragraph.